I have added the tool name to the tooltips where possible. This one did really hurt my fingers, i had around 1500 entries to change, but it was important for the icon buttons. I have where possible separated tooltips for tools that has different functionality but the same tooltip. And where not possible, changed the tooltips to explain the both (or even more) involved tools.

I have removed the Spacebar addon. The menu part of it did not longer fit. T the Bforartists menu diverges too much already from the Blender menu. New is also a stroke select addon, which can replace the Circle select tool in most cases. I have again removed a few double menu entries. And a few smalll issues and bugs gots fixed. All in all there are around 110 commits since Bforartists 0.4.0.

Further roadmap: first follows to update the manual. It has to be on the same level with the software. And then i will have a look for more workflow improvements. The parenting menu will for example surely find its ways into the tool shelf. And there are still some issues in the tracker left where i haven’t found a solution yet. Some of them are bigger ones where i am not sure if i can even manage them. But i will continue to investigate.

Stroke Select is a Blender addon to replace the Circle Select. You simply select elements by mouse stroke. And you can , different from the Circle select, still normally navigate meanwhile. The Circle select mode has the problem that it disables navigation. Which is a real workflow killer.

Beware Beta!

The script and further instructions can be found here: http://www.reinerstilesets.de/anderes/blender-addons/2016-stroke-select-addon/

This is a really sad news. But i simply have to point at this dark chapter of the Bforartists history. Trolling. Open source projects knows this problem too well. And in the very most cases you simply ignore the trolls. It’s wasted time to discuss with the poisoned folks.

But there is a point where you cannot ignore it anymore. When it becomes character assassination. And that’s exactly what happened with the fork and me at the official Blender community page Blender Artists.

There’s news at my Blender Fork Bforartists. Version 0.4.0 is the final stroke below two very big issues that did not work for me. The try to implement the UI solution Qt. And the try to implement new Editor types. This two biggies have eaten lots of time, without a visible result. And that’s why the version 0.4.0 is rather small. The 0.4 series will be reserved for some smaller adjustments instead.

Highlights of this new version: GPU rendering is now possible. I had totally overlooked that Cuda did not work in Bforartists. The new icons became a refinement. They look now (hopefully) much better. The Add menu is now finally completely in the Tool Shelf. And we have a new menu called navi. It contains the navigation tools. The Navigation menu was formerly burried in the Views menu. To have it top level makes it possible to remove the Transform panel from the Tool Shelf.

Version 0.3.0 brings 130 new icons. And icon only buttons in the tool shelf. Which reduces the need for scrolling in this area dramatically. You can still use the text buttons though. The checkbox to switch to text buttons is in the properties sidebar in the 3D View in the Display section.

Bforartists Version 0.2.2 is out. Grab it from the download section: http://www.bforartists.de/content/download
A full list of the changes can be found in the release note: http://www.bforartists.de/wiki/bforartistsreleasenotev022

This release is rather small. The main work for this version was to develop the Important Hotkeys addon, which is included into Bforartists now. The scripting layout is changed, including some tweaks at the menu. It has now a File menu like every standard text editor. And we have some more minor tweaks like readded hotkeys, a handful new menu items and some more removed double entries. Really not this much.

Important hotkeys is a Blender addon that displays some important hotkeys in the upper left corner. So that a new user doesn’t have to do a big research right after the first contact to find out the most basic navigation things.

The Blender version of the addon is a side effect of the current development of Bforartists. Here i need some hint text to show new users how to do basic things like navigation. It runs also in Blender, so while at it …

The plugin is feature complete with this version. And does what it should do. But there might still be some quirks. And i might add some more hotkeys. When you think you know a hotkey that should make it into the plugin, then feel free to make a suggestion 🙂